Chapter 23

Early in the fall Jurgis set out for Chicago again. All the joy
went out of tramping as soon as a man could not keep warm in the
hay; and, like many thousands of others, he deluded himself with
the hope that by coming early he could avoid the rush. He
brought fifteen dollars with him, hidden away in one of his
shoes, a sum which had been saved from the saloon-keepers, not so
much by his conscience, as by the fear which filled him at the
thought of being out of work in the city in the winter time.

He traveled upon the railroad with several other men, hiding in
freight cars at night, and liable to be thrown off at any time,
regardless of the speed of the train. When he reached the city
he left the rest, for he had money and they did not, and he meant
to save himself in this fight. He would bring to it all the
skill that practice had brought him, and he would stand, whoever
fell. On fair nights he would sleep in the park or on a truck or
an empty barrel or box, and when it was rainy or cold he would
stow himself upon a shelf in a ten-cent lodginghouse, or pay
three cents for the privileges of a "squatter" in a tenement
hallway. He would eat at free lunches, five cents a meal, and
never a cent moreso he might keep alive for two months and
more, and in that time he would surely find a job. He would have
to bid farewell to his summer cleanliness, of course, for he
would come out of the first night's lodging with his clothes
alive with vermin. There was no place in the city where he could
wash even his face, unless he went down to the lake front
and there it would soon be all ice.

First he went to the steel mill and the harvester works, and
found that his places there had been filled long ago. He was
careful to keep away from the stockyardshe was a single man
now, he told himself, and he meant to stay one, to have his wages
for his own when he got a job. He began the long, weary round of
factories and warehouses, tramping all day, from one end of the
city to the other, finding everywhere from ten to a hundred men
ahead of him. He watched the newspapers, toobut no longer was
he to be taken in by smooth-spoken agents. He had been told of
all those tricks while "on the road."

In the end it was through a newspaper that he got a job, after
nearly a month of seeking. It was a call for a hundred laborers,
and though he thought it was a "fake," he went because the place
was near by. He found a line of men a block long, but as a wagon
chanced to come out of an alley and break the line, he saw his
chance and sprang to seize a place. Men threatened him and tried
to throw him out, but he cursed and made a disturbance to attract
a policeman, upon which they subsided, knowing that if the latter
interfered it would be to "fire" them all.

An hour or two later he entered a room and confronted a big
Irishman behind a desk.

"Ever worked in Chicago before?" the man inquired; and whether it
was a good angel that put it into Jurgis's mind, or an intuition
of his sharpened wits, he was moved to answer, "No, sir."

So within half an hour he was at work, far underneath the streets
of the city. The tunnel was a peculiar one for telephone wires;
it was about eight feet high, and with a level floor nearly as
wide. It had innumerable branchesa perfect spider web beneath
the city; Jurgis walked over half a mile with his gang to the
place where they were to work. Stranger yet, the tunnel was
lighted by electricity, and upon it was laid a double-tracked,
narrow-gauge railroad!

But Jurgis was not there to ask questions, and he did not give
the matter a thought. It was nearly a year afterward that he
finally learned the meaning of this whole affair. The City
Council had passed a quiet and innocent little bill allowing a
company to construct telephone conduits under the city streets;
and upon the strength of this, a great corporation had proceeded
to tunnel all Chicago with a system of railway freight-subways.
In the city there was a combination of employers, representing
hundreds of millions of capital, and formed for the purpose of
crushing the labor unions. The chief union which troubled it was
the teamsters'; and when these freight tunnels were completed,
connecting all the big factories and stores with the railroad
depots, they would have the teamsters' union by the throat.
Now and then there were rumors and murmurs in the Board of Aldermen,
and once there was a committee to investigatebut each time
another small fortune was paid over, and the rumors died away;
until at last the city woke up with a start to find the work
completed. There was a tremendous scandal, of course; it was
found that the city records had been falsified and other crimes
committed, and some of Chicago's big capitalists got into
jailfiguratively speaking. The aldermen declared that they had
had no idea of it all, in spite of the fact that the main
entrance to the work had been in the rear of the saloon of one of
them.

It was in a newly opened cut that Jurgis worked, and so he knew
that he had an all-winter job. He was so rejoiced that he
treated himself to a spree that night, and with the balance of
his money he hired himself a place in a tenement room, where he
slept upon a big homemade straw mattress along with four other
workingmen. This was one dollar a week, and for four more he got
his food in a boardinghouse near his work. This would leave him
four dollars extra each week, an unthinkable sum for him. At the
outset he had to pay for his digging tools, and also to buy a
pair of heavy boots, since his shoes were falling to pieces,
and a flannel shirt, since the one he had worn all summer was in
shreds. He spent a week meditating whether or not he should also
buy an overcoat. There was one belonging to a Hebrew collar
button peddler, who had died in the room next to him, and which
the landlady was holding for her rent; in the end, however,
Jurgis decided to do without it, as he was to be underground by
day and in bed at night.

This was an unfortunate decision, however, for it drove him more
quickly than ever into the saloons. From now on Jurgis worked
from seven o'clock until half-past five, with half an hour for
dinner; which meant that he never saw the sunlight on weekdays.
In the evenings there was no place for him to go except a
barroom; no place where there was light and warmth, where he
could hear a little music or sit with a companion and talk.
He had now no home to go to; he had no affection left in his
lifeonly the pitiful mockery of it in the camaraderie of vice.
On Sundays the churches were openbut where was there a church
in which an ill-smelling workingman, with vermin crawling upon
his neck, could sit without seeing people edge away and look
annoyed? He had, of course, his corner in a close though
unheated room, with a window opening upon a blank wall two feet
away; and also he had the bare streets, with the winter gales
sweeping through them; besides this he had only the saloonsand,
of course, he had to drink to stay in them. If he drank now and
then he was free to make himself at home, to gamble with dice or
a pack of greasy cards, to play at a dingy pool table for money,
or to look at a beer-stained pink "sporting paper," with pictures
of murderers and half-naked women. It was for such pleasures as
these that he spent his money; and such was his life during the
six weeks and a half that he toiled for the merchants of Chicago,
to enable them to break the grip of their teamsters' union.

In a work thus carried out, not much thought was given to the
welfare of the laborers. On an average, the tunneling cost a
life a day and several manglings; it was seldom, however, that
more than a dozen or two men heard of any one accident. The work
was all done by the new boring machinery, with as little blasting
as possible; but there would be falling rocks and crushed
supports, and premature explosionsand in addition all the
dangers of railroading. So it was that one night, as Jurgis was
on his way out with his gang, an engine and a loaded car dashed
round one of the innumerable right-angle branches and struck him
upon the shoulder, hurling him against the concrete wall and
knocking him senseless.

When he opened his eyes again it was to the clanging of the bell
of an ambulance. He was lying in it, covered by a blanket, and
it was threading its way slowly through the holiday-shopping
crowds. They took him to the county hospital, where a young
surgeon set his arm; then he was washed and laid upon a bed in a
ward with a score or two more of maimed and mangled men.

Jurgis spent his Christmas in this hospital, and it was the
pleasantest Christmas he had had in America. Every year there
were scandals and investigations in this institution, the
newspapers charging that doctors were allowed to try fantastic
experiments upon the patients; but Jurgis knew nothing of
thishis only complaint was that they used to feed him upon
tinned meat, which no man who had ever worked in Packingtown
would feed to his dog. Jurgis had often wondered just who ate
the canned corned beef and "roast beef" of the stockyards; now he
began to understandthat it was what you might call "graft
meat," put up to be sold to public officials and contractors,
and eaten by soldiers and sailors, prisoners and inmates of
institutions, "shantymen" and gangs of railroad laborers.

Jurgis was ready to leave the hospital at the end of two weeks.
This did not mean that his arm was strong and that he was able to
go back to work, but simply that he could get along without
further attention, and that his place was needed for some one
worse off than he. That he was utterly helpless, and had no
means of keeping himself alive in the meantime, was something
which did not concern the hospital authorities, nor any one else
in the city.

As it chanced, he had been hurt on a Monday, and had just paid
for his last week's board and his room rent, and spent nearly all
the balance of his Saturday's pay. He had less than seventy-five
cents in his pockets, and a dollar and a half due him for the
day's work he had done before he was hurt. He might possibly
have sued the company, and got some damages for his injuries,
but he did not know this, and it was not the company's business to
tell him. He went and got his pay and his tools, which he left
in a pawnshop for fifty cents. Then he went to his landlady,
who had rented his place and had no other for him; and then to his
boardinghouse keeper, who looked him over and questioned him.
As he must certainly be helpless for a couple of months, and had
boarded there only six weeks, she decided very quickly that it
would not be worth the risk to keep him on trust.

So Jurgis went out into the streets, in a most dreadful plight.
It was bitterly cold, and a heavy snow was falling, beating into
his face. He had no overcoat, and no place to go, and two
dollars and sixty-five cents in his pocket, with the certainty
that he could not earn another cent for months. The snow meant
no chance to him now; he must walk along and see others
shoveling, vigorous and activeand he with his left arm bound to
his side! He could not hope to tide himself over by odd jobs of
loading trucks; he could not even sell newspapers or carry
satchels, because he was now at the mercy of any rival. Words
could not paint the terror that came over him as he realized all
this. He was like a wounded animal in the forest; he was forced
to compete with his enemies upon unequal terms. There would be
no consideration for him because of his weaknessit was no one's
business to help him in such distress, to make the fight the
least bit easier for him. Even if he took to begging, he would
be at a disadvantage, for reasons which he was to discover in
good time.

In the beginning he could not think of anything except getting
out of the awful cold. He went into one of the saloons he had
been wont to frequent and bought a drink, and then stood by the
fire shivering and waiting to be ordered out. According to an
unwritten law, the buying a drink included the privilege of
loafing for just so long; then one had to buy another drink or
move on. That Jurgis was an old customer entitled him to a
somewhat longer stop; but then he had been away two weeks,
and was evidently "on the bum." He might plead and tell his
"hard luck story," but that would not help him much; a saloon-keeper
who was to be moved by such means would soon have his place
jammed to the doors with "hoboes" on a day like this.

So Jurgis went out into another place, and paid another nickel.
He was so hungry this time that he could not resist the hot beef
stew, an indulgence which cut short his stay by a considerable
time. When he was again told to move on, he made his way to a
"tough" place in the "Levee" district, where now and then he had
gone with a certain rat-eyed Bohemian workingman of his
acquaintance, seeking a woman. It was Jurgis's vain hope that
here the proprietor would let him remain as a "sitter." In
low-class places, in the dead of winter, saloon-keepers would
often allow one or two forlorn-looking bums who came in covered
with snow or soaked with rain to sit by the fire and look
miserable to attract custom. A workingman would come in, feeling
cheerful after his day's work was over, and it would trouble him
to have to take his glass with such a sight under his nose; and
so he would call out: "Hello, Bub, what's the matter? You look
as if you'd been up against it!" And then the other would begin
to pour out some tale of misery, and the man would say, "Come
have a glass, and maybe that'll brace you up." And so they would
drink together, and if the tramp was sufficiently
wretched-looking, or good enough at the "gab," they might have
two; and if they were to discover that they were from the same
country, or had lived in the same city or worked at the same
trade, they might sit down at a table and spend an hour or two in
talkand before they got through the saloon-keeper would have
taken in a dollar. All of this might seem diabolical, but the
saloon-keeper was in no wise to blame for it. He was in the same
plight as the manufacturer who has to adulterate and misrepresent
his product. If he does not, some one else will; and the
saloon-keeper, unless he is also an alderman, is apt to be in debt to
the big brewers, and on the verge of being sold out.

The market for "sitters" was glutted that afternoon, however,
and there was no place for Jurgis. In all he had to spend six
nickels in keeping a shelter over him that frightful day, and
then it was just dark, and the station houses would not open
until midnight! At the last place, however, there was a
bartender who knew him and liked him, and let him doze at one of
the tables until the boss came back; and also, as he was going
out, the man gave him a tipon the next block there was a
religious revival of some sort, with preaching and singing,
and hundreds of hoboes would go there for the shelter and warmth.

Jurgis went straightway, and saw a sign hung out, saying that the
door would open at seven-thirty; then he walked, or half ran,
a block, and hid awhile in a doorway and then ran again, and so on
until the hour. At the end he was all but frozen, and fought his
way in with the rest of the throng (at the risk of having his arm
broken again), and got close to the big stove.

By eight o'clock the place was so crowded that the speakers ought
to have been flattered; the aisles were filled halfway up, and at
the door men were packed tight enough to walk upon. There were
three elderly gentlemen in black upon the platform, and a young
lady who played the piano in front. First they sang a hymn, and
then one of the three, a tall, smooth-shaven man, very thin, and
wearing black spectacles, began an address. Jurgis heard
smatterings of it, for the reason that terror kept him awake
he knew that he snored abominably, and to have been put out just
then would have been like a sentence of death to him.

The evangelist was preaching "sin and redemption," the infinite
grace of God and His pardon for human frailty. He was very much
in earnest, and he meant well, but Jurgis, as he listened, found
his soul filled with hatred. What did he know about sin and
sufferingwith his smooth, black coat and his neatly starched
collar, his body warm, and his belly full, and money in his
pocketand lecturing men who were struggling for their lives,
men at the death grapple with the demon powers of hunger and
cold!This, of course, was unfair; but Jurgis felt that these
men were out of touch with the life they discussed, that they
were unfitted to solve its problems; nay, they themselves were
part of the problemthey were part of the order established that
was crushing men down and beating them! They were of the
triumphant and insolent possessors; they had a hall, and a fire,
and food and clothing and money, and so they might preach to
hungry men, and the hungry men must be humble and listen! They
were trying to save their soulsand who but a fool could fail to
see that all that was the matter with their souls was that they
had not been able to get a decent existence for their bodies?

At eleven the meeting closed, and the desolate audience filed out
into the snow, muttering curses upon the few traitors who had got
repentance and gone up on the platform. It was yet an hour
before the station house would open, and Jurgis had no
overcoatand was weak from a long illness. During that hour he
nearly perished. He was obliged to run hard to keep his blood
moving at alland then he came back to the station house and
found a crowd blocking the street before the door! This was in
the month of January, 1904, when the country was on the verge of
"hard times," and the newspapers were reporting the shutting down
of factories every dayit was estimated that a million and a
half men were thrown out of work before the spring. So all the
hiding places of the city were crowded, and before that station
house door men fought and tore each other like savage beasts.
When at last the place was jammed and they shut the doors, half
the crowd was still outside; and Jurgis, with his helpless arm,
was among them. There was no choice then but to go to a
lodginghouse and spend another dime. It really broke his heart
to do this, at half-past twelve o'clock, after he had wasted the
night at the meeting and on the street. He would be turned out
of the lodginghouse promptly at seven they had the shelves which
served as bunks so contrived that they could be dropped, and any
man who was slow about obeying orders could be tumbled to the
floor.

This was one day, and the cold spell lasted for fourteen of them.
At the end of six days every cent of Jurgis' money was gone;
and then he went out on the streets to beg for his life.

He would begin as soon as the business of the city was moving.
He would sally forth from a saloon, and, after making sure there
was no policeman in sight, would approach every likely-looking
person who passed him, telling his woeful story and pleading for
a nickel or a dime. Then when he got one, he would dart round
the corner and return to his base to get warm; and his victim,
seeing him do this, would go away, vowing that he would never
give a cent to a beggar again. The victim never paused to ask
where else Jurgis could have gone under the circumstanceswhere
he, the victim, would have gone. At the saloon Jurgis could not
only get more food and better food than he could buy in any
restaurant for the same money, but a drink in the bargain to warm
him up. Also he could find a comfortable seat by a fire, and
could chat with a companion until he was as warm as toast. At
the saloon, too, he felt at home. Part of the saloon-keeper's
business was to offer a home and refreshments to beggars in
exchange for the proceeds of their foragings; and was there any
one else in the whole city who would do thiswould the victim
have done it himself?

Poor Jurgis might have been expected to make a successful beggar.
He was just out of the hospital, and desperately sick-looking,
and with a helpless arm; also he had no overcoat, and shivered
pitifully. But, alas, it was again the case of the honest
merchant, who finds that the genuine and unadulterated article is
driven to the wall by the artistic counterfeit. Jurgis, as a
beggar, was simply a blundering amateur in competition with
organized and scientific professionalism. He was just out of the
hospitalbut the story was worn threadbare, and how could he
prove it? He had his arm in a slingand it was a device a
regular beggar's little boy would have scorned. He was pale and
shiveringbut they were made up with cosmetics, and had studied
the art of chattering their teeth. As to his being without an
overcoat, among them you would meet men you could swear had on
nothing but a ragged linen duster and a pair of cotton
trousersso cleverly had they concealed the several suits of
all-wool underwear beneath. Many of these professional
mendicants had comfortable homes, and families, and thousands of
dollars in the bank; some of them had retired upon their
earnings, and gone into the business of fitting out and doctoring
others, or working children at the trade. There were some who
had both their arms bound tightly to their sides, and padded
stumps in their sleeves, and a sick child hired to carry a cup
for them. There were some who had no legs, and pushed themselves
upon a wheeled platformsome who had been favored with
blindness, and were led by pretty little dogs. Some less
fortunate had mutilated themselves or burned themselves, or had
brought horrible sores upon themselves with chemicals; you might
suddenly encounter upon the street a man holding out to you a
finger rotting and discolored with gangreneor one with livid
scarlet wounds half escaped from their filthy bandages. These
desperate ones were the dregs of the city's cesspools, wretches
who hid at night in the rain-soaked cellars of old ramshackle
tenements, in "stale-beer dives" and opium joints, with abandoned
women in the last stages of the harlot's progresswomen who had
been kept by Chinamen and turned away at last to die. Every day
the police net would drag hundreds of them off the streets, and
in the detention hospital you might see them, herded together in
a miniature inferno, with hideous, beastly faces, bloated and
leprous with disease, laughing, shouting, screaming in all stages
of drunkenness, barking like dogs, gibbering like apes, raving
and tearing themselves in delirium.